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Secretary's Report for 2002
2002 was the Golden Jubilee season and celebrated by a well attended reunion dinner at the Blackpool Hilton in March.Each club made up a display board of photographs of teams,players and memorabilia which provided a focus for many memories.
Friendships were renewed and those many incidents that make cricket the game it is,recalled. Good though the hospiality was, the over riding impression of the evening was of the friendships, enjoyment and good cricket that the Northern League had generated in its fifty years existence.
Cricket is now being played under much different circumstances and it is up to us all to make certain that the Northern League thrives and meets the new challenges of the next fifty years.
The season was badly affected by the weather, with perhaps the worst conditions we have had for some years. Those who worked on the grounds, preparing pitches and outfields deserve a special mention for their efforts in the difficult cicumstances many experienced.
In the League, strength in depth in all departments deservedly gave Darwen the Championship, though it was a close battle with Morecambe until they faltered over the final games. After being the leading team for the last few seasons Netherfield slipped to third but still kept a hand on some silverware by becoming the winners of the inaugural thwaites Smooth Beer Northern League Cup. Lancaster were runners-up.
The introduction of the League Cup, designed to ensure each club a number of Sunday games, was the most affected by the weather with a number of games being decided unsatisfactorily by "bowl-outs". Bowl outs were introduced to minimse fixture congestion and it was unfotunate that poor weather spoilt the flow of the new competition. Captain's had not realised the importance of how run rate influenced the final positions particulary how the number of wickets lost or taken affects the run rate.
The League is particularly grateful to Daniel thwaites who sponsored the competition, enabling prize money to be awarded to all clubs dependent on their final placing in the competition.
Daniel thwaites are genuinely interested in the development of sport and the coming season they are sponsoring coloured clothing for each of the club's 1st XI to be used in the Cup competition. They and the League hope that this together with other changes will be the starting point for revitalising interest and enthusiasam for the game.
We believe we will be one of the first , if not the first League to introduce coloured clothing into the recreational game.
The 2nd XI League Champions were Morecambe closely followed three points behind by Lancaster. Lancaster gained some compensation by defeating St Annes in the Final to win the 2nd XL League Cup.
The Senior League Representative side lost in the semi-final of the Manchester Evening News Trophy to the Bolton Association and the Junior side were defeated in the Final by the Lancashire County League. Both representative sides suffer from not being able to field their strongest teams.
We are grateful to Rawcliffe Inter-Sport who in conjunction with the Blackpool Evening Gazette sponsor awards for the leading ameteurs. The Batting award was gaind by Gareth Cordingley (Darwen) who scored 804 runs, Andrew Mercer (Darwen) won the bowling with 79 wickets, Mark Lomas (Blackpool) took 15 catches and Neil Senior (Chorley) had 29 victims behind the stumps. Eddie Smith received the Umpire's award.
The leading Professional's were Marcus Sharp of Blackpool with 66 wickets and the South African, Ghulam Bodi who scored 790 runs for Fleetwood.
The League working with the LCB has made strenuous efforts to build a feeder structure of leagues to meet the ECB criteria that all clubs should be able to aspire to Premier League status by promotion and relegation. For a variety of reasons, these efforts have failed and wether we will still be an accredited Premier League for 2003 is in the hands of the ECB
Whatever the outcome, the League is committed to the introduction of promotion and relegation abd will be actively exploring ways that Northern League cricket can develop.
The AGM passed a number of changes to rules that brought some long standing laws about the management of the League up to date, eliminated a problem with the laws on discipline and introduced laws about the Umpirers organisation which strengthened and confirmed their position in the league organisation. The law on slow over rate has been modified to make its operation simpler for Umpires to apply and for spectators to understand.
The AGM also gave the Exectutive the power to introduce Sub-Committees to deal with particular areas of administration of the league and committees to deal with discipline and rules will be in place for next season and it is hoped that we can recruit someone to run a committee concenrating on raising funds.
The League has also decided to resurrect the "Fair Play Award".
The League has been sponsored bt Bay Radio for the last three seasons but they are now changing the direction of their publicity and the sponsorship has ceased. The League thanks them for their support, help and exposeure they gave to the League.
The League is grateful to Malcolm Beaty who has marked his long association with the league by donating a trophy for the wicket keeper who takes most victims.
My thanks to all who help to make my job of secretary as stressfree as possible and on behalf of the League thanks to all those who, in what ever way, continue to the running of Northern League cricket and its clubs.
John Cooper
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